Real Weddings: Brandi and Justin

Brandi Shields-McGee, a 32-year-old freelance digital strategist, and Justin Aguilar, a 34-year-old digital product designer at Wealthsimple, met on a night out in Parkdale over a decade ago. Several years of rescheduled coffee dates later, they finally got together. After dating long-distance for two years, they moved in together in 2018. One night later that year, they impulsively bought an engagement ring together. Following a five-year engagement, they tied the knot with a casual civil service at Grey Gardens and a 40-person celebration at Lune 1860 in Goderich. Here’s how it all came together.

Justin: The jury is out on the first time Brandi and I crossed paths, but we like to say it was a summer night in Parkdale in 2012, when a chef was cooking at a warehouse party.

Brandi: Around 2 a.m., long after we’d missed the food, we were lingering in the alleyway with friends and started chatting. I was in a relationship at the time, so it was innocent.

Justin: I had just moved to San Francisco for work, but I came home often. We had a few mutual friends, so I’d run into Brandi at bars.

Brandi: We’re both interested in design, and we started sending each other design blogs and Tumblr posts. I grew up in Flamborough, home of the African Lion Safari, where there wasn’t much access to art. It was thrilling to connect with Justin on a passion for furniture.

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Justin: Brandi kept suggesting coffee when I was in town, but something would always come up, like taking care of my family’s dog. After flaking one too many times, I sent her a pound of Pilot coffee beans as an apology. About one bean for every missed latte.

Brandi: When we finally met up, at Boxcar Social in the summer of 2017, it was closed for a private event. We pivoted to the Slip, a marina bar that was blasting EDM. The vibe shift was dramatic, so we ditched the caffeine and opted for liquid courage.

Justin: It was one of those meandering summer afternoons that carried us from one fun thing to the next. I had plans later with mutual friends and invited Brandi. We ended up at Bar Fancy, then Apartment 200. Friends kept asking if Brandi was my girlfriend.

Brandi: I love those moments when friends intuit something before you do.

Justin: About a week later, Brandi invited me to a party for her birthday, which is four days away from mine.

Brandi: I introduced Justin to my friends, and he just fit. I’m pretty forthcoming, so later that night I asked him outright if he was seeing anyone. When he said no, I said, “Maybe we could make this work.” He was flying back to California the next morning, so I had one shot to say something or regret it.

Justin: It caught me off guard, but in the best way. We went from being just friends to a serious long-distance relationship almost overnight. We talked on the phone every evening and had Friday night Skype dates. After about nine months of flying home to visit as often as I could, I bought Brandi a ticket to California.

Brandi: I explained to my dad that a guy I had recently started dating was taking me on a trip. My dad said, “If you trust him, go.” Justin and I rented a car to drive down the Pacific Coast Highway.

Justin: It rained the whole time, and with mudslide warnings, most of the PCH was closed. We had to reroute inland, but it was still a special trip. We were fully present with each other.

Brandi: All that time in the small space of the car lurched our relationship forward.

Justin: Then it crossed our minds—What now? We’d been dating long-distance without a plan for the future.

Brandi: I was game to move to a new city, but Justin missed his friends and family in Toronto. In April of 2018, he quit his job, packed his things into a shipping container and moved into my tiny High Park studio apartment.

Justin: We didn’t have a big talk about what living together would look like. It just happened seamlessly, like a lot of our relationship.

Brandi: Justin is in the 0.01 per cent of men who understand cohabitating. When he moved in, he started cooking and acting like a thoughtful roommate-husband hybrid.

Justin: I loved how warm it felt. I had barely cooked for myself in San Francisco, so while I was applying for jobs, it became my new skill to master. Cooking for Brandi’s vegetarian diet was also a new challenge. It was easier for us both to eat veggie, so I started adapting my childhood favourites, like red sauce lasagna and shepherd’s pie.

Brandi: I joked that if we could survive long-distance, we could survive anything, and I meant it. But I didn’t believe in marriage. I thought, It’s just a piece of paper. Why bother? But Justin shifted my perspective in the way he treated me as a life partner. One day I jokingly said, “Where’s my ring?” It became a running bit. I started sending him photos of rings, and the joke morphed into reality.

Justin: She would not let up. I’d never pictured myself getting married, but Brandi’s relentless joking worked its way in. One night in September of 2018, we were having drinks at one of our favourite haunts, Tequila Bookworm, and she brought it up again. I called her bluff. I said, “Fine, let’s get the damn ring then.”

Brandi: I found a website, Vrai, where you could design your own ring online. We were a couple of drinks in, so it was like, Yeah, that carat sounds good. That’s a cute shape. Click! Add to cart. We laughed the whole time.

Justin: It was a big purchase, so I had to drunkenly call my bank and ask them to approve the charge because it kept getting declined. The fraud team said, “Sir, are you trying to buy a diamond right now?” and I gleefully responded, “Yes!”

Brandi: That’s how we’ve approached every big moment—lighthearted and full of love. We’ve never put pressure on milestones, and we didn’t need a wedding to prove anything. But the ring made me feel like a grown-up who had built a special sense of stability with someone. It meant everything to me.

Justin: I thought about just handing Brandi the ring package when it arrived, but some recently married friends convinced me I’d regret not making a moment out of the proposal, so I planned a little surprise.

Brandi: A month after we bought the ring, Justin told me we were going to Tabule for dinner.

Justin: But, in the Uber, Brandi noticed we were driving past Tabule. I had a hard time keeping my composure while she asked a million questions.

Brandi: We pulled up outside an industrial building in Leslieville with huge steel doors—it was very design-y. I was beginning to think it was a photoshoot, but when we walked into the front hall, I saw a big white floral arrangement by Citizen Bloom, the florist that Justin had used to send me flowers when we were long distance.

Justin: They weren’t even in business anymore, but they agreed to do one last bouquet for the occasion.

Brandi: Then I saw the ring in a box on the table. Justin was just standing there, smiling. I looked at him, then at the ring, then back at him.

Justin: I literally said, “Are you going to make me do it?” And she nodded.

Brandi: So he took the ring, got down on one knee and proposed, giggling non-stop. It was perfect—hilarious, beautiful and totally us.

Justin: The building had several lofts, and we spent the weekend in one hanging out, cooking and enjoying the moment.

Brandi: We didn’t rush wedding planning. Being engaged felt like a complete step of its own.

Justin: When Covid hit, we saw our friends who were getting married go through so much planning, postponing and reconfiguring that we were happy to wait. We hadn’t been to many weddings either, so we weren’t sure what we wanted.

Brandi: Every option was on the table—a city hall elopement, something big, something tiny.

Justin: We only knew what we didn’t want—a traditional wedding with assigned tables and six-hour sit-downs with no chance to mingle.

Brandi: By 2022, spaces were opening up again. We’d just bought a house in the east end, so the wedding felt like the last big thing. One of my favourite dress designers, Danielle Frankel, had just redone her New York showroom. She’d recently been featured in Vogue and was starting to blow up. I realized if I didn’t make an appointment with her then, I’d never be able to. I said to Justin, “We’re going to New York this weekend.”

Justin: I thought I’d come to the appointment, since it seemed cool to make the dress decision together. But Brandi’s friend offered to join her at the last minute, so Brandi’s wedding outfit could remain a secret from me.

Brandi: I don’t wear white—or dresses for that matter. I felt like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls. But then I tried on a suit with a fluffy and flowy corset top and wide-leg pants. At that moment, it sank in: I’m really getting married. I knew instantly that I’d be wearing that suit set.

Justin: I ordered a simple custom suit from Canadian designer Waley Gao of Tired.

Brandi: Once we’d locked down our outfits, the vibe of the wedding took shape. We wanted it to feel intimate and somewhat unexpected.

Justin: We looked at restaurant venues first. La Palma’s upstairs event space was beautiful, and we loved the furniture, which was important to us. But there’s a noise cutoff time, so we wouldn’t be able to have late-night dancing. We decided to draw up a contract with them anyway.

Brandi: I had been following the build of Lune 1860—a country house in Goderich renovated to look like an airy European manor. We drove out to take a look, and the second we walked in, we knew it was perfect. The owners, Lisa and Ezra, have great taste, and the space exuded calm. It even smelled amazing.

Justin: Over burgers at the Black Dog, we decided we had to go for it. We were obsessed with the location.

Brandi: I had a vision for the aesthetic, and we brought in a wedding planner who knew how to handle hosting a 40-person dinner.

Justin: It didn’t make sense to shuttle an officiant out to Goderich, so we decided to have our legal ceremony at our favourite Toronto restaurant, Grey Gardens, six days before the wedding. Then we had a small dinner with our families.

Brandi: Reverend Charity Adams, also known as the Modern Nun, officiated. She showed up, shook our hands and married us in about thirty seconds. We didn’t want to do vows or a big performance—it was so quick that Justin’s mom didn’t even have time to film it. She asked Charity to redo it so she could get it on camera. We all obliged for mom.

Justin: Our close friend Jay unofficially officiated a little ceremony at Lune. He kept it light and personal. In lieu of walking down the aisle with our parents, my mom handed Brandi my wedding ring, and her dad handed me Brandi’s ring.

Brandi: Decor-wise, we wanted the space to feel ethereal but not overly polished. We draped the bench seating in linens from Simply Beautiful Decor, and I worked with Gunnar Floral on surreal flower arrangements—I wanted them to be slightly wilting, off-balance and otherworldly.

Justin: When friends and family arrived, we had our favourite beers from Sonnen Hill and Lark sparkling water in ice buckets for people to grab.

Brandi: The food was probably the most stressful part of the planning. We didn’t want guests to be stuck in their chairs for a multi-course meal of boring food. We ended up going with McEwan Fine Foods for a delicious and unfussy coursed meal.

Justin: Aside from the ceremony and dinner, we didn’t have an agenda—no first dance, speeches or even a cake. We wanted the rest of the evening to feel loose and full of possibility.

Brandi: Lune has a firepit, a garden and indoor-outdoor spaces, so we encouraged our guests to wander around.

Justin: After dinner, everyone migrated to the garden to watch the sunset. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of our friends, Justin, dragging a giant speaker onto the lawn. He and his sister Jessica, who deejayed the wedding, took it upon themselves to move the party outside.

Brandi: It was a cinematic moment—people dancing in the grass, the sunset, warm air, friends laughing.

Justin: At one point later in the evening, we realized everyone had disappeared. After looking around the house, Brandi and I found a bunch of people lying down in a field, stargazing.

Brandi: It was pure magic. When the night ended, we shuttled our guests back to their hotels, and Justin and I had the dreamiest sleep of our lives in a gorgeous room at 3 Sisters Boutique Hotel in Blyth. Our new running joke is, Should we get married again? Even with all the stress and money spent, it was absolutely worth it.

Justin: Being married doesn’t feel wildly different, but it does feel solid. My biggest advice to anyone getting married is: think of it as a party. You only get one chance to host a love fest that’s entirely yours. And don’t listen to anyone else—not family, friends or TikTok. The only people who need to like the wedding are the couple.

Brandi: Leave some room for spontaneity. The stories we tell again and again are about the things we didn’t plan, like friends meeting our families and dancing in the garden. The wedding gave everyone we love a chance to connect. That’s the best gift we could have asked for.

Cheat Sheet

Dates: August 6 and 12, 2023 Photography: Marissa Joan Ho of Coessential and second photographer Vai Yu Law Videography: Mike Sunday Planner: Narelle Janine Events Venue: Lune 1860 Officiants: Jay Lacuna and Reverend Charity Adams (The Modern Nun) Floral arrangements: Gunnar Floral Additional decor: Simply Beautiful Decor Food and bar: McEwan Foods Refreshments: Sonnen Hill and Lark Water Late-night food: McEwan Fine Foods DJ: Jessica Bayot Bride’s dress: Cecilie Bahnsen for the legal ceremony and Danielle Frankel for the wedding Bride’s ring: Natasha Schweitzer Groom’s suit: Homme Plissé Issey Miyake for the legal ceremony and custom suit by Waley Gao for the wedding Groom’s ring: Attic